Introduction

The rugged smartphone is, by all accounts, a form factor of interest to a tiny consumer niche, and as such isn’t a popular choice with manufacturers. Among the big players, Samsung has been the most supportive of the idea, with the best-known example being the “Active” spins on its mainline flagships.

But one might consider its Xcover line, in this case represented by the latest Xcover 4, to be in an even tighter niche: where the Active series offers top-of-the-line specs if a sturdier body, the Xcover family is firmly and unashamedly planted into the low end. Thus, when taking into consideration whether such a phone is “good”, one has to shift their expectations and judge it more based on whether it meets its own, offbeat set of goals, over whether it suits the everyday consumer’s needs.

So with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at this quirky beast.

Design and display

Durability entails some sacrifices in the looks department

You couldn’t call the Xcover 4 pretty if your life depended on it – every design decision on this phone simply screams “function over form”. Visually, this is a classic Samsung but with a couple of necessary changes due to its form factor, such as the all-plastic back and the three physical buttons on the front.

This, however, quickly proves itself to be a quite nice little package: the grippy outer shell feels amazingly comfortable in the hand while also doing its job quite well. And somewhat surprisingly, the Xcover 4 carries a US military MIL-STD-810G rating (as well as the more standard IP68), which means it’s resistant to extreme environmental conditions: these include water, dust, shocks, low and high pressure, and extreme temperatures.

The display is nothing to write home about with its 720 x 1280 px resolution spread across a 5-inch screen, but is, on the other hand, more than bright enough for outdoor use. However, the auto brightness rarely works particularly well in certain conditions, so you might be better off disabling it if it doesn't feel particularly good for you too.

The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set (area) of colors that a display can reproduce, with the sRGB colorspace (the highlighted triangle) serving as reference. The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x: CIE31' and 'y: CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.

The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.

The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance (balance between red, green and blue) across different levels of grey (from dark to bright). The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones, the better.

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